


the wonderful mess that we made

by taizi



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Families of Choice, Fluff and Humor, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon, sarchengsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 15:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17347778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taizi/pseuds/taizi
Summary: “As it has been explained to me on numerous occasions, time is a circle.” Henry draws a helpful loop in the air with his finger, to illustrate his point. “We’re not married yet, but we will be eventually, so we sort of already are. Hence, the impending divorce.”





	the wonderful mess that we made

"I think I'm having a panic attack,” Henry says cheerfully, by way of hello.

Blue stands back to let him into her apartment, mentally writing off her homework for the evening as a lost cause.

Her roommates are in the living room, ostentatiously pretending not to stare, and Henry doesn’t give them the customary friendly wave. He doesn’t even seem to notice their attention at all, which is so much out of character for him that Blue thinks something might actually be wrong.

“Oh,” Henry says before she can get a word in, deducing something from her lack of reaction, “I guess you haven’t checked the group chat recently.”

Jesus Christ.

“I’ve been working. What have they done _now?”_

“Your husband is trying to drive me to an early grave.”

“Why is he only my husband when he’s doing something wrong?”

Blue leads Henry to the tiny kitchen while they banter. He perches on a stool like a long-legged bird and props his elbows up on the counter, a familiar fixture against the yellow walls and dull blue tiles. It’s late, but there’s fresh coffee in the pot because Blue is a college student, and she fills two mugs while searching her pocket for her phone.

She sewed the pocket into this skirt herself so it takes some digging. Henry refrains from teasing her so loudly he might as well have not bothered.

The muted group chat is as busy and ridiculous as it always is. Even without living in each other’s pockets the way they used to, Blue and her boys fill each other’s days one way or another. Gansey is spending the week at the Barns (even though Henry grumbled about his bed being too big with him gone, and how was he supposed to sleep alone for a _whole week,_ and why doesn’t their girlfriend like him enough to stay over even though the commute to her job would be an extra hour from there, and they’re both the worst and Henry deserves better) and Blue expected some level of extra shenanigans from that end.

But the innocuous video message draws her eye. Below it is Henry’s “????” followed by “hey what the fuck???” and “no what the FUCK fellas?????”

Blue takes a steadying breath. She presses play.

The video cuts in abruptly, auto-focusing as it zooms in. The wind is dull white noise against the camera on all sides, and Blue realizes that this is being recorded from somewhere very high off the ground.

Ronan is laughing, that loud gut laugh that Blue associates with fires and speeding tickets. Behind the camera, Adam’s voice cusses softly, and then yells, _“Don’t fucking drop him, Ronan! This is so stupid!”_

 _“Fuck you!”_ Ronan yells back happily. _“We’re investigating!”_

Finally he comes into view. Gansey is with him. They’re most certainly _not_ at the Barns-- or at least not any part of it that Blue recognizes. They’re halfway up some ancient wooden structure, and Gansey is leaning out as far as he can with a journal in hand. He’s taking notes, despite the wind biting at his hair and pulling at his tacky fruit-print jacket, as calmly as a TA behind a desk in any one of Blue’s classes.

Blue stands in her little kitchen with a forgotten mug of coffee in her hand and stares at the video of her boyfriend suspended sixty feet above the ground by nothing but a halfhearted elbow looped around a rail and his brother’s hands on his belt.

Strained and disbelieving, Adam’s voice barely carries over the wind; _“We drove all the way to Tippecanoe because someone he knows on Twitter saw ghost lights in the state park. You know how many @s he gets a day about this stuff? A lot. You know how much I’ve learned about the history of Indiana in the last two hours? A lot. You know how pissed I’ll be if my boyfriend and my best friend break their fucking necks from falling off a fire tower? A_ lot _!”_

This last part is shouted in the direction of said boyfriend and best friend, who don’t react beyond shooting Adam the bird and a careless wave, respectively. Ronan’s relaxed grip on Gansey and Gansey’s relaxed grip on the rail causes Gansey to slip a few inches, Ronan to scramble, and Adam to drop his phone with a colorful curse. The video ends there.

Henry takes a very calm sip of coffee. Blue says, at length, “What the _fuck?”_

“My thoughts exactly! I’m considering a divorce!”

“You’re not married,” one of Blue’s roommates pipes up from the couch. “So a divorce should be easy.”

“As it has been explained to me on numerous occasions, time is a circle.” Henry draws a helpful loop in the air with his finger, to illustrate his point. He doesn’t glance her way or even seem to care that what he’s saying sounds insane. “We’re not married yet, but we will be eventually, so we sort of already are. Hence, the impending divorce.”

Half of Blue wants to smile, but the other half is still horrified.

“They were supposed to be in _Virginia,_ ” she says. “They drove nine hours just to look for ghost lights.”

“Alleged ghost lights. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks it was just campers with flashlights fucking around.”

“Ronan, I expect this from. But _Adam?”_

“See if we ever let him babysit again.”

“Have you talked to Gansey? Aside from your keyboard mashes in the group chat, I mean.”

“Nope! I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting or not, so I came here first to get your opinion. From the look on your face, though, you’re on my side? We’re going to gang up on our beautiful idiot life partner, and you won’t let me cave in when he sounds sad at me?”

Blue leans over the counter to kiss him. He tastes like vanilla caramel from his coffee, smells like ozone from the overcast weather outside and citrus from Gansey’s shampoo, and leans into her with a sigh that betrays how disquieted he actually is under his shiny veneer.

“It’s just,” Henry says, as though he knows he's stupid for it but he can’t help but care this much, “what if he _fell?”_

A speaking look at Blue's roommates drives them out of the living room, and they close the bedroom door behind them to give Henry and Blue the polite illusion of privacy. Blue taps Gansey's name and puts the outgoing call on speaker. Henry is gazing down at the display on the phone screen, an ugly selfie of the three of them in which Gansey manages to look lovely despite his crooked glasses and rumpled shirt and wild hair. 

He picks up on the fifth ring, sounding breathless. 

 _"Jane!"_ he says, the voice of someone who has no idea he's in trouble. The words are shaped like a smile, and despite herself, something tight in Blue's chest goes soft.  _"How's the paper going?"_

"The paper has been put on hold," Blue says primly. "Because our boyfriend came over to my apartment in distress. Because  _our_ boyfriend decided to spend his evening dangling off of a _fire tower_ hunting for _ghosts_."

"Why ghost-hunting, Dickie?" Henry has to ask at that point. "I mean-- you _know_ ghosts are real. You were roommates with a ghost.  _You_ were a ghost, one memorable St Mark's Eve. So-- what proof are you looking for, exactly?"

_"Proof for everyone else. Noah isn't evidence, he's family, I'm not going to use him. And I was perfectly safe, besides. Ronan was holding onto my belt."_

On one hand, there are few places Gansey is safer than with Ronan. On the other, sixty-some feet is a long way to the ground, and not even the Greywaren can bring the laws of gravity to heel in the real world. Blue massages her temple, in preparation for the headache she's sure this conversation is going to give her.

"I know that you've got all sorts of climbing and spelunking gear that you've used in all corners of the world, I  _know_ you do. So why is it I never see you in a helmet when you're doing something spectacularly stupid?"

 _"What's the worst that could happen?"_ Gansey says, interested. _"I've already died twice. That's once more than I'm supposed to, isn't it?"_ _  
_

And that...

That sounds suspiciously like someone else.

Death left a hole in him that Cabeswater had to fill, and sometimes it spills over the edges like an overflowing cup.

Henry's hand curls around his mug, a little too tight, and Blue takes a slow breath in. 

She doesn't say  _Give Gansey back. I'm talking to Gansey, not to you,_ but she wants to. Cabeswater gave them a miracle when it gave them back Gansey's life, but his friends don't want to share him. These moments of-- spilling, of overlap, are few and far between, but they're unsettling even in their scarcity. 

"The absolute worst?" she says with playful severity. "A divorce. Henry's going to take half of what you own, and probably keep the townhouse too."

 _"Oh,"_ Gansey says, and sounds like himself again. _"Is he upset? I'm sorry, I didn't-- I wasn't thinking._ _It's just-- the view was too good to pass up, you know? From that height, in the dark, the forest canopy looked like a sea. You should have seen it,"_ he adds. _"It wasn't magic, but it came close. I wish you had been there with me."_

"Ugh, you're impossible," Henry grumbles. He's probably annoyed that he's too fond of Gansey to stay annoyed. "Take me on your stupid road trip next time."

_"But you said you were busy-- "_

"And tell Ronan that I will personally, and with extreme prejudice,  _kick his ass_ if he lets you pull some shit like that again," Blue adds, raising her voice, because she's ninety percent certain Ronan and Adam are within earshot of the call. 

 _"Bring it, nerd,"_ Ronan says, instantly proving her point. There's a muffled thud, and a soft cuss, and Adam's voice hissing at him to _'shut up, Lynch, we're already in deep shit.'_

"At the very least, you could wear a helmet," Henry says. "A helmet is the  _very least_ you could do."

_"I, um-- could keep one in the trunk? If that would make you feel better?"_

It's probably the best they're going to get out of him. There's no way he'll stop climbing abandoned fire towers or investigating the things his odd internet circles send him, and Blue wouldn't even ask it of him. He's going to school because he has to, majoring in historical archaeology to absolutely no one's surprise, but it's clear that his heart lies in his own research, his own travels, his own agenda. He's going to discover everything, Blue thinks. Every wonderful and magical thing the world has to offer, and he'll do it with or without a fancy degree, he's done it _already,_ and he'll do it with them by his side every step of the way if he can.

And of course he can. Blue wants him safe, but she doesn't want him stifled.

"Thank you," Blue allows magnanimously. "Are you still at the state park?"

 _"No, we're somewhere on I-65. The Pig died on our way back to the Barns._ _Adam is working his magic under the hood as we speak. We're trying to convince Ronan to dream up a conveniently located auto shop for us, but so far no dice."_

The video still bothers her a little-- especially that little slip and near-fall near the end-- but Gansey is so very much _alive_ , as steady and constant as the earth. He's far away for right now, but if she closes her eyes she can convince herself he's right there, his voice filling her small kitchen while his brothers bicker distantly somewhere behind him. Henry rests his chin on his folded arms, and Blue strokes a hand through his hair absently. They lean over the phone from opposite sides of the counter for a moment, heavy with love, aching with it, endless with it; much more than a moment should be able to hold.

_"It's late where you are, isn't it? Now that you've scolded me, you should probably get some sleep."_

"When are you coming home?" Henry asks. "All joking aside, it's weird without you here."

Gansey's voice is smiling again when he says, _"Soon."_

They say their goodnights, and Blue takes Henry by the hand and pulls him to the second bedroom. Her boys don't usually sleep over here, because the walls are thin and her roommates are nosy, but they've been here often enough that Henry can maneuver through the mess on the floor without turning on the light, and Blue follows him down onto the bed without bothering to undress. His arms slip around her and she buries her nose in the hollow of his neck. 

"Still getting a divorce?" she murmurs.

"I guess I'll save that trump card for when I really need it," Henry sighs. "Our marriage is safe for now."

"It's a circle," Blue reminds him. "If you were gonna get divorced, we'd be divorced already."

"Well, shit." Henry pulls her a little closer. Two out of three is better than one, and Gansey will be home this time tomorrow. "Guess we're permanent."


End file.
